5 Wild Takeaways from The New Yorker’s Interview with Giuliani Associate Yuriy Lutsenko

Connor MannionDec 16th, 2019, 2:53 pm
 
5 Big Takeaways from Yuriy Lutsenko Interview

Danil Shamkin / NurPhoto via Getty Images

The New Yorker’s Adam Entous has a new long interview with Ukraine’s former prosecutor general Yuriy Lutsenko on his role in the scandal that will likely result in President Donald Trump’s impeachment.

The entire interview is worth a read, but here are five wild takeaways from the interview, which also features quotes from Rudy Giuliani on his partnership with Lutsenko, John Solomon, and a number of government officials from the United States and Ukraine.

1. Giuliani admits he created a “dossier” to get Amb. Marie Yovanovitch removed from Ukraine

It has previously been reported that Lutsenko was behind the push to get Yovanovitch removed as the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, but Giuliani elaborates on his role and essentially admits to what Yovanovitch testified to in her impeachment inquiry testimony.

“Giuliani largely confirmed Lutsenko’s account of their relationship. He, too, saw Yovanovitch as an obstacle, hindering his attempt to dig up dirt against his client’s rival in advance of the 2020 election. “I believed that I needed Yovanovitch out of the way,” he said. “She was going to make the investigations difficult for everybody.” Giuliani compiled a dossier on the Bidens and Yovanovitch, which he sent to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and which was shared with the FBI and with me. John Solomon, a journalist, had interviewed Lutsenko for the Washington-based publication The Hill. Giuliani promoted the project. “I said, ‘John, let’s make this as prominent as possible,’ ” Giuliani told me. “ ‘I’ll go on TV. You go on TV. You do columns.’””

2. Lutsenko resented Yovanovitch because she rebuffed his efforts to set up a meeting with Jeff Sessions
Sources told The New Yorker that they believed Lutsenko was not focusing on investigating corruption while he was in office, being more interested in attacking Ukrainian reformers supported by the United States.
“In May 2018, Lutsenko attended an event in New York marking the fifteenth anniversary of the adoption of the United Nations Convention against Corruption. Ukrainian diplomats had tried to arrange meetings for him in D.C., with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, among others, but, the former Lutsenko aide said, “our Ambassador was told clearly that ‘Yovanovitch is blocking everything from Kyiv. I cannot jump this gap.’ ” U.S. diplomats and law-enforcement officials, having concluded that Lutsenko was intentionally harassing U.S.-backed reformers instead of focussing on real cases of corruption, chose not to advocate for the meetings that he wanted.”
3. Lutsenko believes Giuliani is gunning for a job as Secretary of State, and his Ukraine escapades are part of that. 
Lutsenko offered no proof of his assertion, but seemed to think that Giuliani’s efforts are meant to prove himself to the Trump administration.
“Giuliani was looking for any information that could support Trump’s suspicions that Ukrainians had tried to help Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. (Toward the end of our second evening in London, after several rounds of drinks, Lutsenko speculated that Giuliani was hoping that Trump would make him Secretary of State.)”
4. Giuliani and his associates tried to pressure Lutsenko to publicly announce an investigation into the Bidens while Lutsenko was in office
Lutsenko held the office of prosecutor general mainly under former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. He was dismissed from the role by the Ukrainian parliament following the election of Volodymyr Zelensky.
“Lutsenko and Parnas kept in touch with each other via text message. Parnas often sent him news clips related to the Bidens and Yovanovitch. Lutsenko reached the conclusion that Giuliani either was not able to convince Barr to meet with him or was no longer trying. Lutsenko said he understood that Giuliani and his associates wanted him, as the prosecutor general, to “announce” investigations into the Bidens and into claims of Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election. He told me that he suspected that an attention-grabbing announcement from Ukraine was more important to Giuliani than the proposed investigations themselves, which would drag on for years. But Lutsenko said that, under Ukrainian law, he didn’t have grounds to announce an investigation into the Bidens. “I was near the red line, but I didn’t cross it,” Lutsenko said. Giuliani told me, “I was wondering what kind of game he was playing. I felt like we were getting scammed.””
5. Lutsenko’s 2009 drunken arrest in an airport was parodied in a comedy sketch featuring future president Zelensky
Throughout the piece, Lutsenko is mentioned consuming a fairly large amount of alcohol during some of his interviews with Entous – who also mentions that Lutsenko was arrested at an airport in 2009 because of a drunken incident.
“Lutsenko was known as a prodigious drinker, and in 2009 he was detained at the Frankfurt airport after consuming several beers at a bar there and throwing punches at security guards. Lutsenko described the incident as a “misunderstanding”—the guards, he said, had been rough with his teenage son, who was with him. At home, a television show by the popular Ukrainian comedy troupe Evening Kvartal featured a skit in which an actor playing Lutsenko wakes up in a haze at the airport, surrounded by bandaged German border guards. (One of the Germans was played by a young comedian named Volodymyr Zelensky.) Lutsenko, who was in the studio audience when the skit was performed, was shown laughing on camera.”
Tags: